Poems. Edna St. Vincent Millay

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Of the horizon, thin and fine,

       Straight around till I was come

       Back to where I’d started from

       And all I saw from where I stood

       Was three long mountains and a wood.

       Over these things I could not see:

       These were the things that bounded me;

       And I could touch them with my hand,

       Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

       And all at once things seemed so small

       My breath came short, and scarce at all.

       But, sure, the sky is big, I said;

       Miles and miles above my head;

       So here upon my back I’ll lie

       And look my fill into the sky.

       And so I looked, and, after all,

       The sky was not so very tall.

       The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,

       And—sure enough!—I see the top!

       The sky, I thought, is not so grand;

       I ’most could touch it with my hand!

       And reaching up my hand to try,

       I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

      I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity

       Came down and settled over me;

       Forced back my scream into my chest,

       Bent back my arm upon my breast,

       And, pressing of the Undefined

       The definition on my mind,

       Held up before my eyes a glass

       Through which my shrinking sight did pass

       Until it seemed I must behold

       Immensity made manifold;

       Whispered to me a word whose sound

       Deafened the air for worlds around,

       And brought unmuffled to my ears

       The gossiping of friendly spheres,

       The creaking of the tented sky,

       The ticking of Eternity.

       I saw and heard and knew at last

       The How and Why of all things, past,

       And present, and for evermore.

       The Universe, cleft to the core,

       Lay open to my probing sense

       That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence

       But could not—nay! But needs must suck

       At the great wound, and could not pluck

       My lips away till I had drawn

       All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!

       For my omniscience paid I toll

       In infinite remorse of soul.

       All sin was of my sinning, all

       Atoning mine, and mine the gall

       Of all regret. Mine was the weight

       Of every brooded wrong, the hate

       That stood behind each envious thrust,

       Mine every greed, mine every lust.

       And all the while for every grief,

       Each suffering, I craved relief

       With individual desire—

       Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire

       About a thousand people crawl;

       Perished with each—then mourned for all!

       A man was starving in Capri;

       He moved his eyes and looked at me;

       I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,

       And knew his hunger as my own.

       I saw at sea a great fog bank

       Between two ships that struck and sank;

       A thousand screams the heavens smote;

       And every scream tore through my throat.

       No hurt I did not feel, no death

       That was not mine; mine each last breath

       That, crying, met an answering cry

       From the compassion that was I.

       All suffering mine, and mine its rod;

       Mine, pity like the pity of God.

       Ah, awful weight! Infinity

       Pressed down upon the finite Me!

       My anguished spirit, like a bird,

       Beating against my lips I heard;

       Yet lay the weight so close about

       There was no room for it without.

       And so beneath the weight lay I

       And suffered death, but could not die.

      Long had I lain thus, craving death,

       When quietly the earth beneath

       Gave way, and inch by inch, so great

       At last had grown the crushing weight,

       Into the earth I sank till I

       Full six feet under ground did lie,

       And sank no more—there is no weight

       Can follow here, however great.

       From off my breast I felt it roll,

       And as it went my tortured soul

       Burst forth and fled in such a gust

       That all about me swirled the dust.

       Deep in the earth I rested now;

       СКАЧАТЬ